1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a recording apparatus, and more particularly to a recording apparatus which has recording elements arranged in a plurality of rows and which is arranged to perform a recording operation by driving the recording elements on the basis of recording information supplied to the apparatus.
2. Discussion of Related Art
As disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2003/0063449 A1 (corresponding to JP-A-2003-80683), the recording head of an inkjet recording apparatus is equipped with a plate-type piezoelectric actuator unit having recording elements which are activated to eject color inks through nozzles. That is, each of the recording elements is activated to eject the ink of the corresponding color through a corresponding one of the nozzles which are formed in the recording head to be arranged in a plurality of rows. On a surface of the piezoelectric actuator unit, there are formed surface electrodes which are electrically connected to drive electrodes, so that drive signals driving the respective recording elements can be supplied to the drive electrodes via the surface electrodes. A flexible wiring board is provided to be connected to an upper portion of the piezoelectric actuator unit, such that the wiring board is elongated or extends in a direction parallel to the rows of the nozzles. On the flexible wiring board, there is disposed an IC chip (hereinafter referred to as “converter”) for outputting the drive signals. The converter has output terminals connected to the respective surface electrodes via a wiring pattern which is formed on the flexible wiring board and which is provided by conductive lines or wires each connecting a corresponding one of the output terminals to a corresponding one of the surface electrodes. The conductive wires are arranged to extend substantially straightly in parallel with the rows of the nozzles. In this arrangement, the output terminals and the conductive wires are grouped into a plurality of groups corresponding to the respective rows of the nozzles.
Meanwhile, U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,937 (corresponding to JP-A-2000-85116) discloses a control to transmit recording information to the converter, which control can be carried out in a recording apparatus such as the above-described inkjet recording apparatus. According to the disclosure of this U.S. Patent, the inkjet recording apparatus has image-data buffer storages each capable of storing a portion of the recording information which is related to a corresponding one of the ink colors. The image-data buffer storages are connected to respective read-out circuits. When a recording operation is performed on a recording medium, the recording information is read out, by CPU command, from the buffer storages via the read-out circuits, and is then serially transmitted to the converter. In the serial transmission of the information, the portions of the recording information relating to the respective ink colors are transmitted in sequence over a single path to the converter. The converter coverts the serially transmitted information into parallel signals, and then applies the parallel signals as drive signals to the respective drive electrodes, so that the inks are ejected through the respective nozzles onto the recording medium whereby the recording operation is performed on the recording medium.
However, in the above-described inkjet recording apparatus in which the flexible wiring board is elongated in the direction parallel to the rows of the nozzles, a widthwise direction of the wiring board corresponds to a direction perpendicular to the rows of the nozzles, namely, corresponds to a widthwise direction of the recording head rather than a lengthwise direction of the recording head. Therefore, there is a limitation as to the number of the conductive wires formable on the wiring board, making it difficult to increase the number of the nozzles. Where the number of the nozzles is required to be increased, the recording apparatus requires to be provided with a plurality of recording heads. The provision of the plurality of recording heads problematically leads to an increase in cost required for manufacturing the apparatus and an increase in overall size of the apparatus.
Such problems could be solved by an arrangement in which the flexible wiring board is connected to the recording head such that the wiring board is elongated in the direction perpendicular to the rows of the nozzles, namely, such that the wiring board can be given a width as large as the lengthwise dimension of the recording head. However, for enabling the recording apparatus with this arrangement, to perform a recording operation under the above-described control, since each family of the output terminals associated with a corresponding one of the recording colors is constituted by ones of the output terminals which are adjacent to each other, the adjacent output terminals constituting each family of the output terminals have to be necessarily connected to ones of the surface electrodes located in a corresponding one of the rows. To this end, (i) the flexible wiring board has to be arranged to have a plurality of layers so that the output terminals of each family can be connected to the surface electrodes of the corresponding row via one of a plurality of wiring patterns which are formed on the respective layers, or (ii) a logic circuit has to be provided within the converter or between the output terminals and the surface electrodes, for changing a positional relationship between each of the output terminals and a corresponding one of the surface electrodes. In either of these arrangements, the manufacturing cost is inevitably increased.